aspergers being describe as mild autistic disorder?

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I don't know, I think it's pretty damn mild compared to more severe forms of autism.

And you know, I'm on a disability pension for AS too, so I know how severe AS can be.

I think the descriptors of "mild" or "severe" are insufficient to describe the various way you can be on the spectrum. After all that is why it is a "spectrum". If you could just classify it as "mild" to "severe" it would merely be a scale. The word "spectrum" is not very precise or descriptive but to me it carries the idea of something more multidimensional which maps quite well to the variety of autistic conditions.

On the other hand, when I read for example Gunilla Gerland's autobiography A real person, it seems obvious that what I have in comparison is indeed "mild". I am not speaking of functioning level here, simply her perception of the world differs much more from neurotypicals than mine.

The main problem I think is that most non-autistic people assume that high functioning = mild. I believe you can have be severely autistic but still manage to be high functioning (with extreme adaptation efforts) and that some people with milder forms can still experience very disabling problems. Having autistic traits is one thing. Being able to adapt to the nt world is something else.

I never really understood why Aspergers was regarded as a different condition to Autism. It makes more sense to me seeing it as mild version of Autism.

The lady shrink I went to for years "never even heard of aspergers" until my family brought it up. And this was almost a decade after 1994 when it became an official label in the USA.

So I assume that most laypeople dont know aspergers from hamburgers. So if I confide in someone that I have aspergers - i wont even use the word. Ill just say "Ive been diagnosed with a mild form of autism"- or some such phrase because most folks have atleast heard the term "autism"(even if they dont really know what that term means either).